|  | 7.1 | Cisco Routers in NetWare Networks
| 7.1.1 | The Novell IPX protocol suite

Cisco and Novell have collaborated for many years to develop and improve NetWare-based networking. Although many of the NetWare protocols were initially designed for use on small, homogeneous LANs, Cisco has added features to optimize NetWare protocols performance in large and diverse networking environments. Cisco supports many unique enhancements to the basic NetWare protocol suite. These enhancements are part of the Cisco Internetwork Operating System (IOS) software. Novell, Inc., developed and introduced NetWare in the early 1980s. NetWare uses a client/server architecture. Clients (sometimes called workstations) request services, such as file and printer access, from servers. Unlike Windows NT networks, NetWare servers are dedicated servers and cannot be used as clients. The graphic shows the NetWare protocol suite, the media access protocols that NetWare and Cisco support, and the relationship between the NetWare protocols and the Open System Interconnection (OSI) reference model. Novell Netware is a proprietary suite of protocols and includes the following: IPX, a connectionless layer 3 protocol, that does not require an acknowledgment for each packet and defines the network and node addresses Novell Routing Information Protocol (RIP)-which is different from IP RIP-to facilitate the exchange of routing information Service Advertising Protocol (SAP) to advertise network services NetWare Core Protocol (NCP) to provide client-to-server connections and applications Sequenced Packet Exchange (SPX) service for Layer 4 connection-oriented services
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